/close-day

Close Day — End-of-Day Processing

Review today's daily note, extract what matters, file it properly, and set up tomorrow. This is a 5-minute ritual, not a lengthy report.

Obsidian Access

Use Obsidian CLI commands directly via Bash. If a CLI command fails, tell the user "Obsidian CLI isn't working — update Obsidian with CLI enabled."

Step 1: Read Today's Daily Note

obsidian daily:read

Parse everything captured: free-form writing, meeting notes, ideas, commitments, tasks mentioned, people referenced.

Step 2: Vault Connection Discovery

After reading today's note, run these queries:

# What themes are most active right now?
obsidian search:context query="<theme 1 from today>" limit=10
obsidian search:context query="<theme 2 from today>" limit=10
obsidian search:context query="<theme 3 from today>" limit=10

# Trace connections to today's note
obsidian backlinks file="<today's note>"

Surface findings as: "Today you wrote about X. This connects to [[note]] from [date] where you were thinking about Y. Worth revisiting?"

Flag recurring themes: "This is the third time [topic] has come up in the past two weeks."

Step 3: Extract & Categorize

Action Items

• Things promised to others
• Things to follow up on
• Deadlines mentioned

Ideas & Insights

• Observations about work patterns
• Ideas for projects, content, or experiments
• Realizations or shifts in perspective

People & Commitments

• Follow-ups owed
• Meetings to schedule
• Messages to send

Questions Raised

• Things to investigate
• Decisions pending
• Uncertainties to resolve

Open Tasks Check

obsidian tasks todo daily

Cross-reference extracted action items against existing tasks — flag any that are missing or incomplete.

Step 4: Update Project Notes

Cross-reference today's daily note with active projects and update their notes in-place, respecting the existing template structure.

4a. List active projects

obsidian files folder="1 - Projects/" format=json

4b. Match projects mentioned today

From the extracted content (Step 3), identify which active projects were worked on — by name, topic, or task context. Include both explicit mentions and implied work (e.g., coding on a feature that belongs to a project).

4c. Read matched project notes

For each matched project, read its main note to understand current structure and content:

obsidian read path="1 - Projects/<project-name>/<main-note>.md"

4d. Update project sections in-place

For each matched project, update the relevant template sections. Never append raw entries at the bottom — always patch existing sections.

Update 📍 Current Status — Replace the status summary and date:

obsidian patch path="1 - Projects/<project-name>/<main-note>.md" heading="📍 Current Status" operation=replace content="_Updated: <today's date>_\n\n<updated status summary incorporating today's progress>\n\n### What's in progress\n<merged list: keep existing items still relevant + add new from today>\n\n### Open questions / Blockers\n<keep unresolved items + add new ones from today, remove resolved ones>"

Update 🧠 Key Decisions (only if a decision was made today):

obsidian patch path="1 - Projects/<project-name>/<main-note>.md" heading="🧠 Key Decisions" operation=append content="| <today's date> | <decision> | <why> |"

Update 📝 Notes & Context (only if new insights emerged):

obsidian patch path="1 - Projects/<project-name>/<main-note>.md" heading="📝 Notes & Context" operation=append content="\n<new insight or context>"

Guidelines:

• Only update if there's meaningful progress — skip trivial mentions
• Preserve existing content in each section; merge, don't overwrite blindly
• For Current Status: update the date, rewrite the status summary to reflect current state, and merge in-progress items (keep what's still active, add new, remove completed)
• For Key Decisions: only add rows, never remove existing ones
• Use the user's own language from the daily note
• If a project note doesn't follow the standard template, adapt — find the closest matching sections and update those

4e. Report what was updated

Present a summary:

Updated project notes:
- [[Project A]] — status + in-progress updated
- [[Project B]] — new decision logged
Skipped (mentioned but no actionable progress): Project C

Step 5: Suggest Filing Locations

For each extracted item, recommend where it should live in PARA:

Item	Type	Suggested Location	Action
...	Insight	3 - Resources/	Create or append to note
...	Task	Daily note tasks section	Add checkbox
...	Idea	0 - Inbox/ or existing note	Add to running log

Step 6: Suggest Backlinks

# Check existing outgoing links before suggesting new ones
obsidian links file="<today's note>"

Identify terms in today's note that should link to existing notes (skip links that already exist):

• People mentioned -> link to their note if exists
• Projects mentioned -> link to project notes in 1 - Projects/
• Concepts mentioned -> link to relevant notes in 3 - Resources/

Present as: "Consider adding these backlinks: [[Person]], [[Project]], [[Concept]]"

Step 7: Carry Forward

What to carry into tomorrow

Based on today's note:

• Unfinished priorities
• Commitments due soon
• Momentum to maintain

Write carry-forward items to today's note:

obsidian daily:append content="## Carry Forward\n- [item 1]\n- [item 2]"

Quick Wrap Answers

If the Quick Wrap section wasn't filled in today's daily note, draft answers:

• Did I explore anything new today?
• What did I actually move forward?
• What bottleneck became obvious?
• One thing to carry into tomorrow?

Output Format

Today's Extraction

[Categorized list of items pulled from the note]

Vault Connections

[Recurring themes, connections to older notes]

Project Notes Updated

[List of projects updated with progress entries]

Filing Suggestions

[Table of where things should go]

Backlinks to Add

[List of suggested links]

Carry Forward

[What matters for tomorrow]

Quick Wrap (if not completed)

[Draft answers to reflection questions]

Keep output concise. Focus on filing and surfacing what matters, not summarizing the day.